


The Mystery of the Main Page: a logic puzzle

by DancingGrimm



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, John Watson's Blog, Logic puzzle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-02
Updated: 2013-04-02
Packaged: 2017-12-07 07:17:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/745794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DancingGrimm/pseuds/DancingGrimm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When John finally gets a moment to write out a busy week's cases, Sherlock confounds him by claiming it's possible to work out the essential details of each case from the fragments of text shown on the blog's main page. Can you prove your reasoning skills and solve this puzzle?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Problem

Sherlock and John have been rushed off their feet this past week, with no less than five cases. With Sherlock actually tired out for once, John has had sufficient peace and quite to write all of them up for his blog, stretching some cases out into more than one article. Upon looking at the blog though, Sherlock claims that the main page and the snippets of the articles displayed there, contain enough information for an intelligent person to work out the salient details of all five cases!

From the fragments of each post, shown below, can you work out what day each case took place, the crime committed, the name of the criminal, and the 'fanciful' title given to it by John?

The answers are I the next chapter, as well as the step-by-step solution, in case you get stuck.

(Please note; if John's articles refer to a case that takes place on another day, it _is_ one of the other cases in this puzzle, and the days are all in one week, running from Sunday to Friday.)

 

 

Days

Sunday

Monday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

 

Crimes

Burglary

Fraud

Identity theft

Kidnapping

Murder

 

Criminals

Rashid Begum

Malcolm Bennett

Walter Ponsonby

Julia Popsley

Ingrid Walsh

 

Blog titles

The Creepy Man

The Devil's Hand

The Disappearance of Lily France's Car Tax

The Solitary Skater

The Woman with the Twisted Wit

 

 

1\. Sherlock and I dealt with a curious incident in which the home of a woman called Lily France was burgled; the man to blame took the usual items from the home, but also, strangely, the tax disc from the lady's car... **Read More**

 

2\. My relaxed Sunday morning was disturbed by a call from the Yard, and six hours later we helped to bring about the arrest of a remarkably Creepy Man... **Read More**

 

3\. It's odd that, though we see so few female criminals (statistically there are far fewer in existence, according to Sherlock, particularly in the fields of crime that we usually deal with) it was quite remarkable to find that two cases on consecutive days resulted in the arrest of ladies... **Read More**

 

4\. Just when I thought we'd managed to have a whole week without tragedy, Friday dawned and brought with it a report of a dreadful murder... **Read More**

 

5\. Those of you who are fans of comedians such as Desi Rolland and Sarah Augres may be surprised to know that their various social networking pages have not only been hacked recently, but their bank details stolen too, in a case of identity theft I've named 'The Woman with the Twisted Wit'... **Read More**

 

6\. Today we dealt with a member of the rather ostentatious East London gang known as The Devil's Hand, who called himself Pit Bull. It was rather satisfying to learn, to the surprise of his cohorts, that his real name was Walter Ponsonby. He was rather a culture shock after dealing with the well-mannered Ingrid Walsh only the day before... **Read More**

 

7\. Rashid Begum, whom I would never have suspected as a criminal in a million years, was caught out by Sherlock's tricks only the day after that very tangled case of fraud... **Read More**

 

8\. Julia Popsley sounds like the sort of person who should be presenting Blue Peter or teaching at a nursery, not the sort who should be involved in the kidnap of a child from a park. But people don't always suit their names, and it took all of Sherlock's wits and nerve to find the little boy before he suffocated to death... **Read More**

 

 

 

Can you use these clues to put together a picture of John and Sherlock's week, and what occurred in their cases? Use logic and the process of elimination to work out how and when the people and events fit together, bearing in mind that you will end up with five unique sets of information, one for each day.

 

Good luck!

 

(Just a hint to get you started if you need it; begin by working out which day each criminal was arrested on. Then see where you can go from there.)


	2. The Solution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The step-by-step solution for the puzzle.

The first step is to work out the names of the criminals who were arrested on the different days of the week. The fact that John and Sherlock had no case on Tuesday helps here, as it effectively gives us a block of two days followed by a block of three. We know that the two cases concerning female criminals took place on two consecutive days (clue 3). We also know that there was another case the day after Ingrid Walsh was arrested (clue 6), meaning that these three cases took place on three consecutive days. Thus they must have been on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Thus; Julia Popsley must have been arrested on Wednesday, Ingrid Walsh on Thursday and Walter Ponsonby on Friday.

This leaves Rashid Begum who, according to clue 7, was arrested the day after another case, so not Sunday.

Thus; Malcolm Bennett was arrested on Sunday and Rashid Begum on Monday.

 

Now we can fill in the gaps.

Now we know that Walter Ponsonby, of The Devil's Hand, was arrested on Friday, we can match him up with clue 4, which tells us that he was arrested for murder.

Malcolm Bennett was arrested on Sunday. We know from Clue 7 that this was for a case of fraud, and from clue 2 that John titled him The Creepy Man.

Julia Popsley was a kidnapper and the burglar was a man, so Ingrid Walsh must have been the identity thief in The Woman with the Twisted Wit.

That leaves Rashid Begum as the burglar in The Disappearance of Lily France's Car Tax, and Julia Popsley as the criminal in the case of The Solitary Skater.

 

In short;

 

On Sunday, Malcolm Bennett was arrested for fraud in a case John called 'The Creepy Man'.

On Monday, Rashid Begum was arrested for burglary in a case John called 'The Disappearance of Lily France's Car Tax'.

On Wednesday, Julia Popsley was arrested for kidnapping, in a case John called 'The Solitary Skater'.

On Thursday, Ingrid Walsh was arrested for identity theft, in a case John called 'The Woman with the Twisted Wit'.

And finally, on Friday, Walter 'Pit Bull' Ponsonby was arrested for murder, in a case John called 'The Devil's Hand'.

 

Needless to say, Sherlock was less then impressed with John's choice of titles, not to mention his literary style. That didn't stop him from getting into some very enjoyable arguments in the comments, however.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this little puzzle. Did you solve it? If you did, well done! If not, don't be disheartened, these types of puzzles take a bit of practice. I might try another one, sooner or later, or you can go on my AFF net account and look under 'originals' to see some non-Sherlock puzzles I've posted there, if you'd like.
> 
> And by the way, the case titles refer to the stories 'The Creeping Man', 'The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax', 'The Solitary Cyclist', 'The Man with the Twisted Lip', and 'The Devil's Foot'.
> 
> Happy days :)

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to celebrate my birthday by creating this logic puzzle to confuse and amuse you. I hope you enjoy it :)


End file.
